Sponsored transactions—the separation of fee payment from transaction content—have been a long standing feature request. Unlike similar proposals, this EIP specifies a method of implementing sponsored transactions that allows both externally owned accounts (EOAs) and [EIP-2938](./eip-2938.md) contracts to act as sponsors.
With the explosion of tokens built on Ethereum, especially stable coins, it has become common for EOAs to hold valuable assets without holding any Ether at all. These assets must be converted to Ether before they can be used to pay gas fees, but without Ether to pay for the conversion, it's impossible to convert them. Sponsored transactions break the circular dependency.
While it is possible to emulate sponsored transactions (ex. [Gas Station Network](https://www.opengsn.org/)), these solutions require specific support in callee contracts.
- Set the caller address based on an ECDSA signature.
`NAMETBD` shall increase the call depth by one, in the same way as `CALL`. `NAMETBD` shall not increase the call depth by two (as it would if it first called into the sponsee account and then into the callee.)
In a static context (such as the one created by `STATICCALL`), `NAMETBD` with a non-zero `value` shall exit the current execution frame immediately (in the same way `CALL` behaves with a non-zero value in a static context.)
Where `len(data)` is the length of the region of memory defined by `argsOffset` and `argsLength`, rounded up to the nearest 256-bit word, and `cost_of_call(...)` is the cost of a `CALL` (`0xF1`) instruction with the same `gas`, `value`, `argsOffset`, `argsLength`, `retOffset`, and `retLength` arguments.
The signature arguments `value`, `chainid`, and `invoker` are not included in arguments to the instruction because they can be calculated by the instruction itself.
It is important to differentiate between a failure in `NAMETBD`'s preconditions versus a failure in the callee. Correctly implementing replay protection requires the invoker to change its state (i.e. burn the nonce) even if the callee fails; but doing so if, for example, the signature failed would be nonsensical. Several options exist for encoding these two failure cases: returning two stack elements, reserving a specific revert reason, or choosing different values in a single stack element.
Reserving a specific revert reason, for example `NAMETBD failed`, is a large departure from other instructions. An invoker would need to inspect the revert reason to determine whether the callee reverted, or the `NAMETBD` pre-conditions were invalidated, which implies reading and comparing memory values. Further, to remain sound if a callee were to revert with `NAMETBD failed`, `NAMETBD` would need to replace the return data with some other value.
Returning a single stack element with different values depending on the situation (ex. `0` on success, `1` when the pre-conditions are violated, and `2` when the callee reverts) introduces the opportunity for a subtle bug: it's trivially easy to misinterpret the return value (`CALL` returns non-zero on success), but it's much harder to ignore a whole new stack value.
Including `sponsee` in the arguments to `NAMETBD` is a gas optimization for invoker contracts implementing some replay protection based on the sponsee address. Without the `sponsee` argument, invokers would have to do their own `ecrecover` before calling into `NAMETBD` to verify/adjust any state for replay protection.
### Reserving an [EIP-2718](./eip-2718.md) Transaction Type
While clients should never directly interpret transaction-like packages as true transactions, reserving an [EIP-2718](./eip-2718.md) transaction type for transaction-like packages reduces the likelihood of a transaction-like package being misinterpreted as a true transaction.
Other approaches to sponsored transactions, which rely on introducing a new transaction type, are not immediately compatible with account abstraction (AA). These proposals require a _signed_ transaction from the sponsor's account, which is not possible from an AA contract, because it has no private key to sign with.
Besides better compatibility with AA, an instruction is a much less intrusive change than a new transaction type. This approach requires no changes in existing wallets, and little change in other tooling.
`NAMETBD`'s single purpose is to set `CALLER`. It implements the minimal functionality to enable sender abstraction for sponsored transactions. This single mindedness makes `NAMETBD` significantly more composable with existing Ethereum features.
More logic can be implemented around the `NAMETBD` instruction, giving more control to invokers and sponsors without sacrificing security or user experience for sponsees.
Earlier approaches to this problem included mechanisms for replay protection. This proposal explicitly does not handle replay protection, but instead includes a signed-but-unused field (`nextra`) which is expected to be used by invoker contracts to implement replay protection. Delegating replay protection to the invoker sidesteps the issue of giving a precompile contract its own storage, while opening the door to more innovative replay protection methods in the future.
